Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: essay

  • prompt 216

    Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

    Sound: My cats’ pleading sounds, especially Toro’s, for paying attention to them while I was WFH until 7:00 pm today. No matter how hard I tried to ignore them all the time, it was impossible because I simply couldn’t. Then there’s mom’s ever-neurotic shrieking for my letting the cats out to the living room, which is her domain. I am getting crazier and crazier by day.

    Smell: Mon Paris by Yves Saint Laurent. I got the smallest size of the lovely perfume from a Sephora store that happened to be an hour away from home. I ordered it online yesterday for the same day delivery. Anyway, I got it, and it smelled lovely. It makes me feel like I am a beautiful sultry French chic. Plus, it’s cheaper than Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle, which I will get in the future.

    Taste: I had Coffee-Flavored Hagen-Daz ice cream during an afternoon break. It’s both proportionally and favorably perfect. Small but fulfilling. I used to be biased against the brand because I thought it was overhyped, but as I get older, I like the flavor, which pleases my taste buds.

    It was a long day for me. I prefer WFH to WFO even amid the cacophony of my cats’ caterwauling and mom’s shrieking because working in such a small office with people half my age gives me an awkward vibe, and I believe they will feel the same way. I think I am wired to be alone. Good-hearted but socially gauche. Anyway, tomorrow is WFO ! But I have no choice of obeying it because if I don;t go there, Alan will complain about handling the incoming mail by himself, which will be rolled into a bid snowball of criticism about my not keeping commitment to WFO two days a week. Nevertheless, I hate going to the office.

  • emotion bin

    Why do I always feel guilty and remorseful about things I am not wholly responsible for, the faux pas?

    And I have a reason to think so.

    Today, the accounting clerk – more of a delivery guy – was supposed to pick up a returned check from a vendor, but he wasn’t, and the accounting department was behind him by not answering my questions about why he didn’t pick up the check. Did I do something unforgivably or gravely wrong? Was my calling the guy “Hey George” enough to irritate his nerves? But don’t they at the firm call each other “Hey?” Oh, I got it. So they can say hey, but me. It’s not the same, hey. It’s a different hey from mine. I got it.

    Still, it’s a job, and what if someone – and most possibly the guy himself – steals the check and appropriates it to frame me so that I will be fired from the job? I have a valid reason to speculate the scenario: that guy smirks at me and is always happy to ignore me when saying hi and hello, and what’s up to everyone but me. Too sensitive? Of course, when you and he are alone in an elevator, and there’s only radio silence, except for his malicious and vile smirk? Oh, yes, definitely sensitive.

    The check was not returned and is supposedly kept in our desk drawer in the office. I worked from home today, and I asked my colleague in the office to keep it in the drawer. I hope the delivery guy or his kindred accomplice will not do anything malicious to wreak havoc on my career and sanity.

    I am writing this because otherwise, I would feel like I cannot sleep. So, by writing the litany of woes, I hope I can get rid of the evil spells or exorcise demons hell-bent on gripping my soul, dragging me to hell.

  • Bye Summertime, Hello Wintertime

    They should abolish this stupid summertime system. You know whom I am talking about.

    It’s asinine, addles-headed, useless, and pointless. I mean—seriously—what need is there to keep this anachronistic system in this digital age when most developed countries do not live by this supposedly smart time system?

    Suppose this is for any entrepreneurial purposes that satisfy business people who make a living by getting an hour less of sleep. In that case, they should adapt their business’s open mode to the present online business shopping module because nowadays, people shop more online than offline.

    It has been said that the Senate will vote to abolish the summertime system, but that is only the father of the idea. I don’t think the system will be abolished anytime soon.

    Anyway, it was nice of me to sleep one hour extra after getting ready for the 7:00 a.m. mass at 4:00 p.m. today. Thank Mom for letting me know.

  • Cat who thinks himself

    Toro thinks

    My cat thinks

    Not that he is a cat.

    But hey! Who knows?

    He is a human who never

    got to see the sun of life

    but returned from the other

    Not drinking from the Lethe

    wearing a cat-skin in tabby 

    to live with his family, poor

    but rich with love and care.

    The cat knows the secrets

    of life and the life beyond, 

    and this universe he lives

    he knows it’s one of many

    he has seen in his cat’s eyes

    he has traveled in paws. 

    No wonder he is so beautiful. 

  • Prompt 213 on my beneficiaries

    If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

    Sister Teresa of Calcutta said charity begins at home, and I agree with her wholeheartedly. If you do not care for those close to you, then you can’t care for others, even if you would deny it. But of course, that doesn’t mean my neighbors!

    That said, if I should be so lucky – oh, so lucky! – to have a fortune to give away, I would first help my brother so that he could clear away his financial burdens and help him start his new family. Then, I will look for our relatives who may be struggling financially. Thereafter, I will donate funds to my church and ask the priest to help parishioners who are having difficulty with healthcare, housing, and educational costs.

    I would love to say I would donate a million dollars to well-known charity organizations with noble causes, but these are my wishes to help people with my lucky fortune.

  • prompt 212 – fish out of water

    Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

    Hopeful when alone

    When I read the story of the stranded Beluga whale who died in France’s Seine River in 2022, I felt like my spirit was in communion with hers because I could feel what she might have felt—what was once hopeful turned into disappointment and loneliness.

    No one knew what caused her to separate from her pod and end up in the river, but I think she wanted to see the world herself, with the images of kind humans she had once seen on the ocean in her memory. So she came to our world full of expectations for welcoming faces and smiles, but instead, she found herself in a murky gray urban river that made her loneliness more conspicuous, more incongruent.

    Likewise, that’s how I feel when I find myself surrounded by crowds that make my presence awkwardly conspicuous, shielded by an invisible wall of willing ignorance.